“I wondered a little why God was such a useless thing. It seemed a waste of time to have him. After that he became less and less, until he was  ... nothingness.”

“We would be 1,500 years ahead if it hadn't been for the church dragging science back by its coattails and burning our best minds at the stake.”

“The freethinker has the same right to discredit the beliefs of Christians that the Orthodox Christians enjoy in destroying reverence, respect, and confidence in Mohammedanism, Mormonism, Christian Science, or Atheism.”

“No Gods — No Masters.”

"I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind — that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking."

"I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect."

"Openness about the more shadowy corners of experience was one of the many things, along with psychiatry and religion, that Decca simply didn’t 'go in for.' ”

“We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a 'higher answer' — but none exists.”

“Men of simple understanding, little inquisitive and little instructed, make good Christians.”

“The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstitions of the Christian religion.”

"Everything that the historical Christ is, everything that is said of Him, everything that is known of Him, belongs to the world of imagination, that is, of the imagination of the Christian community, and therefore has nothing to do with any man who belongs to the real world."

“A wise man has told us that 'men are once for all so made that they prefer a rational world to believe in and live in.' ”

“I am not going to question your opinions. I am not going to meddle with your belief. I am not going to dictate to you mine. All that I say is, examine, inquire. Look into the nature of things. Search out the grounds of your opinions, the for and the against. Know why you believe, understand what you believe, and possess a reason for the faith that is in you.”

“To what excesses will men not go for the sake of a religion in which they believe so little and which they practise so imperfectly!”

"Mother, I promised you to become a missionary. Now I will be. But not to convert the gentiles to Christianity but to convert the Christians to the truth."